Tanzania's populist President John Magufuli has died at 61
Nakuru (Kenya), Mar 18: President John Magufuli of Tanzania, a prominent COVID-19 skeptic in Africa whose populist rule often cast his East African country in a harsh international spotlight, has died.
He was 61 years old.
Magufuli's death was announced on Wednesday by Vice President Samia Suluhu, who said the president died of heart failure.
Our beloved president passed on at 6 p.m. this evening," said Suluhu on national television. All flags will be flown at half-mast for 14 days. It is sad news. The president has had this illness for the past 10 years.
The vice president said that Magufuli died at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, the Indian Ocean port that is Tanzania's largest city.
Although the vice president said the cause of Magufuli's death was heart failure, opposition politicians had earlier alleged that he was sick from COVID-19.
Magufuli had not been seen in public since the end of February and top government officials had denied that he was in ill health even as rumours swirled online that he was sick and possibly incapacitated from illness.
Magufuli was one of Africa's most prominent deniers of COVID-19. He had said last year that Tanzania had eradicated the disease through three days of national prayer. Tanzania has not reported its COVID-19 tallies of confirmed cases and deaths to African health authorities since April 2020.
But the number of deaths of people experiencing breathing problems reportedly grew and earlier this month the US embassy warned of a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Tanzania since January. Days later the presidency announced the death of John Kijazi, Magufuli's chief secretary. Soon after the death was announced of the vice president of the semi-autonomous island region of Zanzibar, whose political party had earlier reported that he had COVID-19.
Critics charged that Magufuli's dismissal of the threat from COVID-19, as well as his refusal to lock down the country as others in the region had done, may have contributed to many unknown deaths.
It is hard to gauge how most Tanzanians regarded Magufuli's COVID-19 skepticism, in a country where he remained genuinely popular among many for his seemingly frank talk against corruption even as he curtailed political freedoms and increasingly asserted an authoritarian streak. Police arrested at least one man earlier this week who was accused of spreading false information about Magufuli's health.
First elected to the presidency in 2015, Magufuli was serving a second five-year term won in 2020 elections that the opposition and some rights groups said were neither free nor fair. His main opponent in that race, Tundu Lissu, had to relocate to Belgium after the vote, fearing for his safety.
Lissu, who was among the first to raise questions about the whereabouts of Magufuli after he went missing for several days, had been shot 16 times back in 2017, an attack he blamed on government agents because of his criticism of the president.
Magufuli had become so powerful by the start of the COVID-19 outbreak that he could deny the existence of a pandemic without incurring the criticism of his predecessor and other prominent people within Tanzania. In early 2021, amid speculation that Magufuli would seek an unconstitutional third term when his mandate expired in 2025, his ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party was compelled to deny such a thing could happen.
John Pombe Magufuli was born on October 29, 1959, in the rural area of Chato in the country's northwest. The son of a subsistence farmer, he tended his father's cattle but was a good student, seeing classroom studies as a way out of poverty.
Magufuli earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1988. Much later, in 2009, he earned a doctorate in chemistry from the same university.
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International Federation of Journalists says 128 journalists killed worldwide in 2025
Majority killed in conflict zones
Brussels, Belgium: A total of 128 journalists lost their lives across the world in 2025, with more than half of the deaths recorded in the Middle East, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on Thursday.
According to the global press body, the Palestinian territories accounted for the highest number of fatalities, with 56 media professionals killed as Israel’s war with Hamas continued in Gaza. IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger described the situation as unprecedented, saying the concentration of deaths in such a small geographical area over a short period had not been seen before.
“This is not just a statistic. It is a global red alert for our colleagues,” Bellanger told AFP, warning that the scale of violence against journalists reflected a deepening crisis for press freedom worldwide.
Journalists were also killed in several other countries during the year, including Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan, Peru and India. This shows the risks faced by media workers in both conflict zones and politically volatile regions.
Bellanger also criticised the lack of accountability for attacks on journalists, arguing that impunity continued to fuel violence against the press. Without justice, he said, those responsible for targeting journalists are emboldened to continue.
The IFJ report said 533 journalists were currently imprisoned, a figure that has more than doubled over the past five years. China remained the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with 143 reporters detained, including several in Hong Kong, where the imposition of national security laws has drawn criticism from Western governments.
The IFJ noted that its death toll is typically higher than figures released by other watchdogs due to differences in methodology. Its count for 2025 includes nine journalists who died in accidents. In comparison, Reporters Without Borders reported 67 journalists killed in the line of duty during the year, while UNESCO placed the number at 93.
